The Apple v Samsung patent battle is the gift that keeps on giving. It's right up there with the landing of Curiosity on Mars and Usain Bolt's amazing Olympics performances on my short list of things to watch this summer.

Then Apple filed a motion saying because Samsung released this information, the judge should send the jury home and declare Apple the winner of the case and, like, the totally coolest company of all time. Fortunately the judge didn't go for that, though she did verbally spank Samsung legal beagle John Quinn.

Thanks to this trial, we've snuck a peek at dozens of early iPhone and iPad prototypes, including curved and hexagonal-shaped models. (Sadly, none were shaped like a Hello Kitty doll.) And we learned that Apple considered building its own car. What stopped the company? My guess is it couldn't figure out a way to force people to park the thing in iTunes-compatible driveways.

Meanwhile comes news from down under that the court in a different Apple v. Samsung case has decided to hear expert testimony via the "hot tub" method. Sadly, that doesn't mean the experts will take the stand while slowly parboiling in 104-degree water; it means that all experts appear in court at the same time, so if Apple's expert makes some grandiose yet unlikely declaration, the attorneys can call on Samsung's expert to counter it, and vice versa. (The more boring name for this is "concurrent evidence.")

Still, that gives me a great idea for a new invention or possibly just a Hollywood sequel, "Hot Tub Truth Machine." The tagline: "You can sit, but you cannot lie." Quick, get me John Cusack on line one.

The worst thing that could happen in these cases would be for one side to win, especially if a jury decided that Apple invented every cool device on the planet and now gets to own Samsung.